The past few weeks, since Tiomila, have been relatively quiet in the competition scene. I am trying to return to some more basic training, in the build up for WOC and WUOC in a few months time. Last weekend I managed some really nice technical training, firstly at the Jubileumsdubbeln Long distance and then a simply sensational 2hr session in Lunsen the following day. This meant that last weekend I orienteered for just over 30km in very technical terrain. You can see links to the maps below:

Beautiful Lunsen

Jubileumsdubbeln Long Distance
Lunsen Lång Pass

This week, my goal was to further progress the basic training but increasing daylight hours, leading to interrupted sleep, and the decision to run a couple of sprints did not facilitate this plan. However, the sprints that I did were extremely fun. The first was the Stockholm City Cup, the first of a series of sprint races around Stockholm. The map and course were very nice, and a fairly solid technical performance meant that I could pick up 6th position. My speed was not the best, but of course it can be challenging sometimes to push at your maximum level when the race is of not significant importance.

Stockholm City Cup E1

Results

The second sprint race of the week was the annual Centrum Team Sprint. This is a 2 man sprint relay, with 4 legs. I teamed up with David Lingfors, and we decided upon the name “2 wonders” for our formidable challenge at the title. I ran the first leg and had a pretty stable performance to finish in 2nd position, a few seconds behind Järla. David then had a good second leg, such that I would go out in 2nd position on the 3rd leg, 9 seconds behind Järla. For me, the first leg was primarily in the forest, and I felt I had control over my technique. I was a little tired, but I could push quite hard. On my second run however I fell victim to a couple of unfortunate events. Firstly, I took a route choice to the third control which meant I went through a gap in the buildings which I had run through already, to take the second control. As I was running full speed through this gap, to my surprise, a 7 foot Italian came sprinting towards me. Simple physics, conservation of momentum, and I went hurtling off at some undesired angle, turning in the air to capture the surprise in the Italians eyes. Dazed and a little abused, I managed to regain some level of focus. But then, leaving the 6th I decided to embrace a rather structurally sounds metallic pole with my head. I cursed, as I dizzily tried to continue with my orienteering, but ultimately the damage had been done and I lost some valuable seconds.

Sprint Head Trauma

First Leg

Second Leg

Overall we managed to finish in 5th position after David missed a little bit towards the end of his final leg.

Results

Following the sprint, I travelled with Alistair Landels, former top dog in NZ orienteering, back to his home Stockholm. I stayed there for the weekend and enjoyed the beautiful Swedish weather that came this weekend. Dare do I say it, but it was almost too hot! However, 24 degrees made for a rather enjoyable long run on Sunday around the lake that you can see below. Unfortunately my body is not responding so good at the moment. My throat has been a little sore the past couple of days. I am not sure exactly the reason why, whether I am getting sick, my body is a little tired, or I am reacting to the copious amounts of pollen that have taken flight in my breathing airspace.

Ok Weather in Sweden

More OK Weather in Sweden

Tomorrow I begin my new job as  a Project Development Engineer for Landauer Nordic. My first responsibility, finding the correlation between Thoron progeny concentrations and Thorn exhalation rates! This working opportunity I owe a lot to a club member who has helped me significantly in establishing myself in Sweden, so I am really grateful to Tryggve, and the club, for this opportunity!

Work, or Secure Prison?

The focus for the next few weeks will be, as last time, continuing to build the base and to try establish a level of ‘normality’ in my life.  Finally, here is a video of my Tiomila finish from a few weeks ago.

Video of Tiomila Finish

Tiomila is one of, if not the biggest race in Sweden. A 10-man relay, originating from a 10 by 10km race from Uppsala to Stockholm, it is the highlight event for the Scandinavian clubs (along with Jukola). Coming from New Zealand we are not really exposed to the magnitude of events like this and only hear about them through other peoples experiences. I have always wanted to run Tiomila, ever since I first heard about it at one of the Junior Camps back in the day, and this year would be my first taste of the annual event. This year the organisers presented some changes to the normal structure of the event, like an earlier start, so unlike the photo below the big mass start would occur during day light and also the 10th and final leg would be the shortest.

Normal ‘Night’ Start at Tiomila

One of the reasons I joined Ok Linné was because of the number of top orienteers (Oskar, Razz, Albin etc.) who I would get to train alongside. But not only does this make for a sensational training environment but it also means that Linné have a pretty strong 10 man relay team (which happened to finish 4th 2 years ago). After some decent performances in Sweden I was selected for the first team. I was always quite nervous about Tiomila, even before I left for Sweden, as I was unsure of my abilities compared to basically everyone else in the world. I had not had any feedback against other international runners since last years world cup in NZ. Upon arriving to Sweden I found that the biggest difference, at the very top level, is the technical. Most of the top guys are capable of running quite similar speeds in the forest, but it is the execution of their technique which really determines the results. With this revelation, I felt a little bit calmer and less nervous about Tiomila and my approach to the race was, I can only do my best.

Ok Linné First Team  (Less Niklas)

Tiomila was held in Eksjö, just over 4 hours south of Uppsala. The majority of the runners (Youth, Women and Men), including myself, took the big bus down to the competition, while the remaining people made their own way. We arrived at our accommodation, around 30 minutes from the Tiomila Arena, quite late in the evening. Albin, Rassmus and I headed out into the forest for an easy night training. I was not going to be running during the night at Tiomila, but it was still good training and necessary after the travel.

The Saturday saw the youth and women’s relay. Oskar and I, after a very long sleep in, headed out to the event to watch the start of the women’s relay and run an open course, adjacent to the competition area. You can see the map here. From the easy training I found some confidence in the terrain; as expected it was not the most demanding terrain, and as Thierry said after his race “a piece of cake compared to Lunsen”. The start of the womens relay was very exciting, with 319 teams heading out on first leg. We had a chance to see how the arena was designed and could see the changeover after the first leg. The only interesting thing really was how short the distance was from the changeover to the start point, emphasising the Tiomila organisers vision for a compact arena.

We then went back to the accommodation for an afternoon/evening relaxing before our own races. The men’s race began at 1930, so after a quick team meeting at 4, the first and second leg runners headed out to the event. We watched the beginning of the race from the accommodation, and in an attempt to not get too involved in how the race was evolving, we turned off the computer shortly after the beginning of the second leg. I then went to sleep and woke up at 2:30am to head out to the arena. News from the race was that we were sitting comfortably in the top 20 after a strong race by Albin on the long night. The nerves really began to build as we headed out to the event. It felt very strange to experience Tiomila this way, almost hiding from the event until shortly before my race. I missed a lot of things that happened throughout the race, and even now I dont really know how the others in my team ran. Although one piece of the action, which has escalated almost virally on the internet, was Henriks efforts on the 3rd leg which you can see below. Basically, the strategy for the 3rd and 6th legs, which have no forking, is to stick with pack. You cant win the race on these legs, but you can certainly lose it!

Henrik Yolo

After Oskars awesome run on the 9th leg it was my turn to run. My first Tiomila, and I was heading out in 10th position, wearing a gps. Top 10 was our goal as a club, so there was pressure to preserve the 10th position that Oskar had given me. Standing at the exchange I felt confident and hungry for a good race. I knew my speed was good, so it was all down to the technique and pushing hard. I went out a few second behind Matthias Millinger (Järla). The first control was a little bit tricky, and I tried to use Matthias to guide me into the control, but we drifted left after leaving the track and hence missed the control. I then relocated quickly and took the first control ahead of Matthias. I then said to myself, ‘this is my race’, and I tried to be offensive with my technique. I found a good route to the second and by then had caught Lillomarka OL and Hiidenkiertäjät (Leonid Novikov). We had high speed, but I felt all the time in control of my orienteering and leaving the 11th control I was first in our group. I then got stuck in some green just before the TV control and lost Novikov. I panicked a little bit, and became a little stressed.  Unfortunately I made a small mistake after the TV control as I was trying to check my control codes. This year they weren’t next to the control, and I had to flip the map to find the number. It was hard to then relocate and refocus, which I think caused the mistake to the 14th.

Miss to the 14th

Despite the mistake I hit the road on the way to the 16th and I could see Novikov and also Denseln 100 metres up the road.  So I think a really good race I could have finished in front of these teams, but a quite frustrating and stupid mistake to the 19th meant that I instead would be battling Matthias for 9th position. Matthias and I arrived at the 23rd at the same time. I imagine it was a rather exciting finish for the 9th position, but all I can remember is the pain in my chest and the thought of losing to Matthias. I knew how important it was to beat Järla, and I capatalised on a small mistake that Matthias made just before the last control. I was ahead of him up the last hill, but he was closing in. I then decided to give it everything, ignoring the screaming pain from chest, and pushed the last few metres at maximum speed.

So we ended up in 9th position, which I think we were reasonably satisfied with. It was an amazing experience, even if I was sleeping through most of it, but it was a great feeling to be so high up in a very tough field of teams. Notably we beat Halden and Kristiansand! GPS tracking and TV highlight below.

GPS – Leg 10
TV Highlights

Tiomila 2014 – Awesome experience!

For the next few weeks I will return to some more basic training as I begin building for WOC and WUOC, in which I have just been selected for. Also Jukola is on the horizon, another relay, the biggest of them all, which Ill be running for the first time!

This weekend I stayed at home in Uppsala and competed in some local races on Lunsen. Before this weekend I had not run on Lunsen, but it was a map that I was really looking forward to running on. It has been considered in the 101 maps you should run on before you die, so I was very interested to see how the terrain and map compared to others that I have experienced.

On the Thursday, Oskar, Albin, Joseph and I ran some very tough intervals. It was my first proper interval session that I have completed since arriving in Uppsala. The body performed quite well and I felt good, if not smashed, after the session. The Friday, I joined Oskar and Albin at the gym, and we did a nearly 2hr strength programme. This is something that I will be doing regularly, and I feel is something that has been lacking in my training in the past. To be able to run at speed, and to hold that speed, in the forest then sufficient strength needs to be developed in the legs and core. The  suiss runners are doing a lot of this kind of training, and with the Swedish twist that Oskar and Albin have put on it, I believe that I will be doing strength training that will be of most benefit to my orienteering.

Anyway, the Uppsala Möte consisted of a night, middle and long distance. I decided to only run the last two, as I am still trying to come to terms with the terrain in the day, let alone at night. The middle race I was really satisfied with, apart from two controls which cost me 1 minute 30 seconds. I finished in 8th position, however had the speed for the victory. The 13th control, where I missed the most, I think was a result of pushing quite hard into the finish and then not really having a plan in the circle.

Map
Results

In the long distance, I felt really tired. The terrain was a little bit more difficult than the middle, but was still manageable if my technique had been disciplined enough. I was quite tired from a good week of training and work, so I think this was the reason for the absence of focus. The performance was pretty ugly, but after I decided to take it easier following some major mistakes it was really enjoyable and I found a good flow in the Lunsen terrain. I think it will take a few more trainings in this terrain before I can be really comfortable at full speed, but today was just another orienteering lesson! Map.

So after running on Lunsen, more so today than yesterday, I really like the terrain! It is tricky, but the technique is quite straight forward. Hard on the compass, thumbing the map the whole time. It can be very difficult to relocate, so 100% focus is needed otherwise you can end up making some quite bad mistakes! I cant wait to get out there again and avenge my orienteering.

Next weekend is Tiomila! The temperature is suppose to plummet this week, so its going to be a cold weekend away. I am really looking forward to the race, and I think our team is looking really strong. It will be my first time running Tiomila, arguably one of the highlight events of the year. Bring it on! Hoo rah!

The Easter weekend just past, I joined the Linné team on a trip down south for a fantastic weekend of racing! I am not going to lie, the first few weeks in Sweden have been very tough for me. Despite being surrounded by a fantastic group of people, both Swedish and non, I found it very difficult to sleep and hence developed some small worrying issues. Even the simplest task became quite tough, but now here I sit, writing this blog post, feeling very confident and excited for the future (despite a rather appalling race today).

The weekend started off with Stigtomtakvlen, a 6man relay with three night and three day legs. I ran in the first team for Linné on the last leg. We were missing the likes of Oskar, Albin and Rassmus who were recovering from national duties at the European Champs but we still had a very strong team. The night legs were held on Thursday whilst I was fast asleep, but it did mean an early start the following morning as we left the clubhouse at 7am to make the beginning of the re-start of the relay. The night legs did not go so well for us, but three very solid performances by Joseph, Jan and myself brought us into 8th position overall. The terrain was spectacular and I found a good flow. My body did not respond 100% but technically I was satisfied, apart from a small mistake towards the end. See the entire course here.

Once finishing the relay we headed off to Lotorp, a very small town near Finspång. This would be the venue for the Silva league on Sunday. In fact we could see the entire arena from the cute little houses that we stayed in! 

On the Saturday, we had the Kolmårdsmdeln. I took this race very easy as I was concerned about my legs. They were a little sore from the race before, especially the sides of my lower legs and the tops of my quads. The map was pretty average to be honest, the terrain was nice, but I didnt have much confidence in the mapping style. Hence, I could not achieve a good feeling in my orienteering. I still managed to finish 12th in a depleted elite field, but of course the result meant nothing to me.

The next day was the Silva League Long Distance, which I opted not to run. Instead I spent the day spectating and watching all my Linné comrades enjoy a nice painful long distance! It was awesome to see Albin and Rassmus smash the course and both finished in the top 5! I really admire these guys, Oskar too, and I hope to one day achieve a level similar to theirs!

The good – Stigtomtakvlen, the bad – the feelings in the legs and not sleeping, and with Sunday came the outrageously ugly! Kolmårdskavlen was another relay, 5 people this time. Again I was selected for the first team, and again put on the last leg. But this time, the four runners before me were the best that Linné have. Joseph, Rassmus, Albin and Oksar all went out and had stable runs to put me out in 7th position. My run is what I am now going to aptly name, a disaster! But I thought it would be better to take some lessons from this disaster instead of wallowing in my own shitty orienteering.  I apologise to my team mates for the run, but hopefully I will do much better in the future!

Lesson #1 – Know who is running ahead and roughly behind you in a relay.

I went out in 7th position, and I thought I was doing badly right from the beginning. I made some small mistakes and I was really concerned about losing the race for the team. Funnily enough I was just behind Ralph Street who finished in 3rd position! But the worse was when I saw Johan Runesson and I thought that he had caught me. In fact I had caught him and that  I was fighting for 6th position at that stage of the race.

Lesson #2 – Focus all the way, a disciplined technique applied over the ENTIRE course.

After I separated from Runesson due to forking, I made some really really bad mistakes. I can only attribute this to my legs and brain competing for oxygen, coupled with shitty mapping, which Gustav found too. You can see these mistakes below (16 and 17), one was a breakdown in my compass and the second was a misinterpretation of the map. Horrible mistakes, just horrible! But we learn, we adapt and then we evolve!

So the good, the bad, and the ugly! But it was a fantastic weekend away from Uppsala, with some amazing people, playing lots of 7 wonders! The brownies on Sunday night were definitely a highlight for me, thanks Ellie and Boris! Next race is the Uppsala Mote next weekend. It will be the first time I get to run in Lunsen, the holy grail of Orienteering!

“to change ones behavior so that it is easier to live in a particular place or situation”

Adaptation is a natural process which an intelligent system undergoes following change in its internal or external environment. This is such a process which has consumed my life since leaving Auckland on the first of April.

My last days in NZ were filled with TONIC2014, an event that I was largely responsible for (along with Greg and the rest of the NWOC team). It did not give me much time to appreciate that I would be moving to Sweden the day after the final race of TONIC. But then, there I was, at the Airport saying my final farewells to my Family as I begun this epic journey.

The journey was, for the most part, irritating. My flight was cancelled in Sydney which meant that I had to spend a night there, and consequently missed my flight in Dubai. In Dubai I had a sub-par sleep next to a travellator, as I could not be bothered going to a hotel for only 6 hours. Finally, after the mishap with the travel plans I arrived in Uppsala on Thursday 3rd of April, to the warm welcomes of Rassmus :). In the afternoon, I was exposed to the first club training. A series of O-intervals were held in Nåsten, with markers at every control site. It was pretty cool to see Thierry at the training and we had a little yarn before they started the training. I just jogged a few controls and tried to absorb the awesome terrain. See a sample of the map below.

The first week and a bit now has been quite tough for me. I struggled to sleep during the first few nights due to the jetlag. I then began to worry about the decision that I had made; whether coming to Sweden was the right choice. This was, most likely, my fatigued brain playing tricks on me but it led to even less sleep. I finally got some sleeping pills off one of the nicest guys in Uppsala, Ross Smith, and I began to get things under control. I am extremely lucky to have the supportive family and friends that I have, so that even when I could not see the positives they showed me why I am so incredibly fortunate.

Basically the first weeks; the people in Ok Linné are amazing, especially the people living in Bloden. The training environment is unparalleled and I have barely even scratched the surface. The flat I am staying with Oskar and Bettina (who left me to run EOC) is really nice. It is in a perfect location, only a short jog from the club house, and really close to the supermarket. You can see the façade of the apartment block below.

My living arrangement at 17 Blodstenvägen

The adaptation has only just begun, but Uppsala along with the people is assuring me that the decision to focus on Sweden/Orienteering this year was the correct one! Stay posted for some more highlights from my journey to come!

It is just under 3 weeks until I pack my bags and make the biggest change of my life. New country, new training environment, new job, new friends! I have spent the past year very nervous about this move, but now these nerves are evolving into waves of un-paralleled excitement. How could I not be excited when looking at the maps pretty much within running distance from the flat I am moving into.

Still some things to sort out first, mainly TONIC, before I leave on the 31st of March.

Lunsen

While most of the European orienteers were busy in Portugal and Spain, NZ had its first big competition of the year, Sprint the Bay. The competition is a tour-style series of sprint races emulating the form of Le Tour de France. This year marked the 5th, and sadly final Sprint the Bay, which has been pivotal to New Zealander’s rise at the junior level. The demanding courses and perfectly organised events have attracted the likes of Øystein Kvaal Østerbø and Julian Dent in the past. Last year Sprint the Bay set new standards in terms of its organisation and international contingent, following the first round of the world cup. The field this year did not have the same depth, however the events organisation and map quality could not be faulted.

Matthias Muller, winner of STB2013

In the first four stages of this years tour, Tim Roberston (JWOC Bronze Medalist 2013) and I had some tough battles, winning 2 stages each out of the first 4. Going into the 5th stage we were merely 17 seconds apart. In the 5th stage I secured the overall victory with Tim Robertson cracking under what has become his Achilles Heel of STB, ‘the mountain stage’.

Overall victory at STB2014

On the whole I was quite happy with my racing, technically I was fairly solid, however there were a couple of moments where I lost control and missed some seconds. All maps and results can be found on the STB website. The highlight for me was the 3rd stage, running on Sacred Girls. This was a slice of cartographic genius, and I thank Ross for demonstrating sprint mapping and course setting at the highest level. The 3D nature of the route choices, combined with extremely intricate areas gave this race a very European feel, something truly unique in New Zealand.

Sacred Girls: Stage4, M21E course

For now the training continues, as with preparations for TONIC, an event which I am largely responsible for and which will host the trials for the NZ  JWOC Team. More details can be found on the TONIC website, but is shaping up to be one of the highlight events of the century in NZ. Immediately after TONIC, on the 31st of March I will begin my travels to the home of Orienteering, Sweden, where my future awaits me.

For three years now, the Auckland training environment, aptly named the Auckland Orienteering Training Cult (or AOTC for short) has taken part in a mammoth day of sprint orienteering around Auckland. Auckland has numerous schools through its volcanic geography, each one inadequate for a full size sprint. I believe it was Gene Beveridge who came up with the idea to instead utilise these small maps in a series of 1-1.5km o-intervals. In typical AOTC fassion we blew this idea way our of proportion, deciding to maximise the amount of orienteering we could do in a day, hence Sprint Auckland Day (SAD) was conceived.

This year we incorporated SAD with an Ultra-Sprint, organised by Auckland Orienteering Club and a couple of drills and agility sessions to make for a solid weekend of training. On Friday we took part in a running drills session, led by Michael Adams. This is a regular occurrence for the cult now, normally taking place on Saturday mornings. A beautiful evening greeted us as we went through specific exercises which target the various components of a runners gait.

On Saturday morning we competed in the Ultra-Sprint at Cornwall Park. These events have become quite popular in New Zealand, allowing organisers to make use of very small areas which are not large enough for traditional orienteering forms. The one-tree-hill map was completely remapped by Dwayne Smith to 1:1500 scale, with every feature, no matter how small, being mapped. The morning began with three short micro sprints, which contributed to a mass start final. These ‘gimmicky’ races are extremely fun, making for good punching and direction change training. In the final I lined up with Tom, Cameron and Jourdan. Luckily Tom has not been doing too much speed training, preparing for the Coast to Coast, so I could rectify some mistakes in the later part of the course with a solid sprint finish, winning the Ultra-Sprint.

Awesome day for it

Sprint Auckland Weekend concluded with a massive day of sprint intervals around the schools of Auckland. You can read Tom’s account of SAD 2014 here or Genes at the Osquad Blog.

Maps from SAD2014

Hej! Welcome to my blog, as I share with you my adventures and escapades, centred around the passion and joy of my life, Orienteering. In 2013 I completed my final year of Engineering, and I emerged with a First Class Honours degree. It was a stressful and demanding year, and sadly training had to be sacrificed at times. This year my life will change quite dramatically as I move to Uppsala, Sweden to challenge and develop my Orienteering, ultimately in pursuit of a dream, to become the best Orienteer that I can be. This is both an exciting, yet daunting prospect, but one that I hope to share with everybody along the way.

So stay posted for updates from my races, trainings and general thoughts about Orienteering. Välkommen till min blogg!